Comparative carbon-specific ingestion rates of phytoplankton by Acartia tonsa, Centropages velificatus and Eucalanus pileatus grazing on natural phytoplankton assemblages in the plume of the Mississippi River (northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf)
Tester, P.A.; Turner, J.T. (1988). Comparative carbon-specific ingestion rates of phytoplankton by Acartia tonsa, Centropages velificatus and Eucalanus pileatus grazing on natural phytoplankton assemblages in the plume of the Mississippi River (northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf), in: Boxshall, G.A. et al. Biology of copepods: Proceedings of the third international conference on Copepoda. Developments in Hydrobiology, 47: pp. 211-217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3103-9_19 In: Boxshall, G.A.; Schminke, H.K. (Ed.) (1988). Biology of copepods: Proceedings of the third international conference on Copepoda. Developments in Hydrobiology, 47. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht/Boston/London. ISBN 978-94-010-7895-5; e-ISBN 978-94-009-3103-9. XII, 639 pp. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3103-9, more In: Dumont, H.J. (Ed.) Developments in Hydrobiology. Kluwer Academic/Springer: The Hague; London; Boston; Dordrecht. ISSN 0167-8418, more |
| Keywords | Aquatic communities > Plankton > Zooplankton
Feeding
Properties > Physical properties > Turbidity
Acartia (Acanthacartia) Steuer, 1915 [WoRMS]; Centropages Krøyer, 1849 [WoRMS]; Copepoda [WoRMS]; Eucalanus Dana, 1852-1853 [WoRMS]
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| Abstract | During four cruises in continental shelf waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico in the winters of 1981–83, we performed quantitative studies on the grazing of the copepods Acartia tonsa, Centropages velificatus, and Eucalanus pileatus, on phytoplankton using natural particulate assemblages as food. Stations were in, or adjacent to the plume of the Mississippi River, thereby providing wide spectra of phytoplankton and suspended riverine particulate concentrations. Phytoplankton cell volume was converted to carbon, and this, coupled with carbon content measurements of these three copepod species, allowed comparisons of daily ingestion effort even though the copepods were of different sizes. Data were expressed in the same units (% of copepod body carbon ingested copepod-1d-1) for each species. Over similar ranges of phytoplankton carbon concentrations (0.21–92.06 µgC1 -1), Acartia tonsa had higher carbon-specific ingestion rates (x = 22.31%, range = 0.08–152.37%) than C. velificatus (x = 2.8%. range = 0.00–31.09%) or E. pileatus (x = 1.27%, range - 0.10–2.80%). Carbon-specific ingestion rates increased with increasing phytoplankton carbon concentration for A. tonsa (R2 = 0.81) and there was no evidence of saturated feeding on the carbon concentrations offered. A similar, but weaker trend was evident for E. pileatus (R2 = 0.71), but not C. velificatus (R2 = 0.49). Over a wide range of suspended particulate concentrations (10.6–95.2 mg 1-1), there was no systematic effect of particulates on carbon-specific ingestion rate for any of the three copepod species. However, A. tonsa appeared more adept at grazing in highly turbid water than C. velificatus or E. pileatus. |
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